The Male-Dominated Green Landscape

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Feminine Mystique – the book credited with igniting the second wave of American feminism (the first wave involved the struggle for the vote).

Which means it’s an excellent time to raise an important question: Why are so few green groups led by women?

Environmentalists are prone to sanctimony. They claim to be building a more just and equitable world – a world superior to that old, hierarchical one.

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Except that, if you examine green groups, you find pretty much the same old hierarchical structures – and the same shortcomings.

It’s men who are in charge of green organizations, while the word “assistant” still seems more likely to appear in a woman’s title.

Who’s the executive director of Greenpeace International? A gent named Kumi Naidoo.

I haven’t examined the executive personnel of every country in which Greenpeace operates (indeed, this info seems oddly difficult to obtain in many cases), but there’s a decided trend. At Greenpeace, men rule.

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What about the largest, wealthiest, activist organization on the planet – the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)?

The director general of WWF International is Jim Leape. No woman has filled that post since the organization was founded in 1962.

The president and CEO of the WWF’s American arm is a man named Carter Roberts.

Until six months ago, the president and CEO of WWF Canada was Gerald Butts. His replacement has apparently not yet been hired.

Poland, Finland, and Austria are not the beating heart of the green movement. Between them, these countries add up to only 52 million people. Yet these appear to be the only places in which women have managed to break through the WWF’s glass ceiling.

Let’s take a quick look at a few other organizations. The current executive director of the Sierra Club – which describes itself as “America’s oldest, biggest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization” is Michael Brune.

Women appear to be better represented on the boards of directors of green organizations – a role that is distant from day-to-day operations. Concerned with philosophical leadership and oversight, an individual’s presence on a board is sometimes largely symbolic. But not always.

You can see all the presidents of the US Sierra Club here, stretching back to 1892. Of the 54 people who’ve filled that position, eight (15 percent) have been female – including Robin Mann, the current president.

That number, though, is perhaps unfair. If we start counting from 1964, a year after The Feminine Mystique burst onto the scene, there have been 29 Sierra Club presidents – seven of whom were women. That raises the female leadership count to 24 percent.

Across the pond, the international coordinator of Friends of the Earth (FOE), based in the Netherlands, is Dave Hirsch. In the UK, FOE’s executive director is Andy Atkins.

But don’t despair, there’s a bit more good news. My random, far-from-exhaustive Googling has succeeded in locating another green female leader.